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• Are there any changes in the licensing of Visual Studio 2013 Express editions?

  - by Ramón García-Pérez

  As was going through reading the license.htm file provided as part of the VS2013_RTM_WebExp_ENU.iso offline installation media for the Visual Studio 2013 Express for Web, section 6 reads as follows: 6. PACKAGE MANAGER AND THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE INSTALLATION FEATURES. The software includes the following features (each a “Feature”), each of which enables you to obtain software applications or packages through the Internet from other sources: Extension Manager, New Project Dialog, Web Platform Installer, and Microsoft NuGet-Based Package Manager. Those software applications and packages are offered and distributed in some cases by third parties and in some cases by Microsoft, but each such application or package is under its own license terms. Microsoft is not developing, distributing or licensing any of the third-party applications or packages to you, but instead, as a convenience, enables you to use the Features to access or obtain those applications or packages directly from the third-party application or package providers. By using the Features, you acknowledge and agree that: you are obtaining the applications or packages from such third parties and under separate license terms applicable to each application or package (including, with respect to the package-manager Features, any terms applicable to software dependencies that may be included in the package); MICROSOFT MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES OR GUARANTEES AS TO THE FEED OR GALLERY URL, ANY FEEDS OR GALLERIES FROM SUCH URL, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED THEREIN, OR ANY SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS OR PACKAGES REFERENCED IN OR ACCESSED BY YOU THROUGH SUCH FEEDS OR GALLERIES. MICROSOFT GRANTS YOU NO LICENSE RIGHTS FOR THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS OR PACKAGES THAT ARE OBTAINED USING THE FEATURES. Are there any changes in the licensing of Visual Studio 2013 Express editions? If so, does this means that Visual Studio extensions installation in Express Editions is now allowed? PS: Previous versions of the Express editions did not allow the installation of extensions as per "EULA/TOS" discussed here: Limitations of Visual Studio 2012 Express Desktop

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• Are there any plans to support edit-and-continue of XAML in future VS versions?

  - by miguel

  It would make life so much easier!

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• What makes a game a game vs something else like a puzzle or a toy?

  - by Shannon John Clark

  Famously the Sims and similar games have been described by some designers as Toys and not "really" games. I'm curious if there is a good answer to what makes something a game. For example many companies sell Sudoku games - EA has an iPhone one, IronSudoku offers a great web based one, and there are countless others on most platforms. Many newspapers publish Sudoku puzzles in their print editions and often online. What differentiates a game from a puzzle? (or are all Sudoku "games" misnamed?) I'm not convinced there is a simple or easy answer - but I'd love to be proven wrong. I've seen some definitions and emphasize "rules" as core to something being a game (vs. "real life") but puzzles have rules as well - as do many other things. I'm open to answers that either focus only on computer games (on any platform) or which expand to include games and gameplay across many platforms. Here to I'm not fully convinced the lines are clear - is a "game" of D&D played over a virtual tabletop with computer dice rollers, video & audio chat a computer game or something else? (I'd lean towards something else - but where do you draw that line?)

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• 2D character controller in unity (trying to get old-school platformers back)

  - by Notbad

  This days I'm trying to create a 2D character controller with unity (using phisics). I'm fairly new to physic engines and it is really hard to get the control feel I'm looking for. I would be really happy if anyone could suggest solution for a problem I'm finding: This is my FixedUpdate right now: public void FixedUpdate() { Vector3 v=new Vector3(0,-10000*Time.fixedDeltaTime,0); _body.AddForce(v); v.y=0; if(state(MovementState.Left)) { v.x=-_walkSpeed*Time.fixedDeltaTime+v.x; if(Mathf.Abs(v.x)>_maxWalkSpeed) v.x=-_maxWalkSpeed; } else if(state(MovementState.Right)) { v.x= _walkSpeed*Time.fixedDeltaTime+v.x; if(Mathf.Abs(v.x)>_maxWalkSpeed) v.x=_maxWalkSpeed; } _body.velocity=v; Debug.Log("Velocity: "+_body.velocity); } I'm trying here to just move the rigid body applying a gravity and a linear force for left and right. I have setup a physic material that makes no bouncing and 0 friction when moving and 1 friction with stand still. The main problem is that I have colliders with slopes and the velocity changes from going up (slower) , going down the slope (faster) and walk on a straight collider (normal). How could this be fixed? As you see I'm applying allways same velocity for x axis. For the player I have it setup with a sphere at feet position that is the rigidbody I'm applying forces to. Any other tip that could make my life easier with this are welcomed :). P.D. While coming home I have noticed I could solve this applying a constant force parallel to the surface the player is walking, but don't know if it is best method.

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• Slick2D - Cannot instantiate the type Image

  - by speakon

  I am getting this strange error and I cannot for the life of me figure out why: Cannot instantiate the type Image CODE: import java.awt.Image; import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer; import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics; import org.newdawn.slick.SlickException; import org.newdawn.slick.state.BasicGameState; import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame; public class MainMenuState extends BasicGameState { int stateID = -1; Image background = null; Image startGameOption = null; Image exitOption = null; float startGameScale = 1; float exitScale = 1; MainMenuState( int stateID ) { this.stateID = stateID; } public int getID() { return stateID; } public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg) throws SlickException { try { background = new Image("data/menu.jpg"); Image menuOptions = new Image("data/menuoptions.png"); startGameOption = menuOptions.getSubImage(0, 0, 377, 71); exitOption = menuOptions.getSubImage(0, 71, 377, 71); }catch (SlickException e) { System.err.print(e); } } public void render(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, Graphics g) throws SlickException { } public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, int delta) throws SlickException { } } Why do I get this error? I've googled endlessly and nobody else has it, this worked fine in my other game. Any ideas?

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• Creating the concept of Time

  - by Jamie Dixon

  So I've reached the point in my exploration of gaming where I'd like to impliment the concept of time into my little demo I've been building. What are some common methodologies for creating the concept of time passing within a game? My thoughts so far: My game loop tendes to spend a fair bit of time sitting around waiting or user input so any time system will likely need to be run in a seperate thread. What I've currently done is create a BackgroundWorker passing in a method that contains a loop triggering every second. This is working fine and I can output information to the console from here etc. Inside this loop I have a DateTime object that is incrimented by 1 minute for every realtime second. (the game begins in the year 01/01/01) Is this a standard way of acheiving this result or are there more tried and tested methods? I'm also curious about how to go about performing time based actions (reducing player energy, moving entities around the game board, life/death etc). Thanks for any pointers or advice. I've searched around however I'm not familiar enough with the terms and so my searches are yeilding little result on this one.

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• Do I need path finding to make AI avoid obstacles?

  - by yannicuLar

  How do you know when a path-finding algorithm is really needed? There are contexts, where you just want to improve AI navigation to avoid an object, like a space -ship that won't crash on a planet or a car that already knows where to steer, but needs small corrections to avoid a road bump. As I've seen on similar posts, the obvious solution is to implement some path-finding algorithm, most likely like A*, and let your AI-controlled object to navigate through the path. Now, I have the necessary skills to implement a path-finding algorithm, and I'm not being lazy here, but I'm still a bit skeptical on if this is really needed. I have the impression that path-finding is appropriate to navigate through a maze, or picking a path when there are many alternatives. But in obstacle avoidance, when you do know the path, but need to make slight corrections, is path finding really necessary? Even when the obstacles are too sparse or small ? I mean, in real life, when you're driving and notice a bump on the road, you will just have to pick between steering a bit on the left (and have the bump on your right side) or the other way around. You will not consider stopping, or going backwards. A path finding would be appropriate when you need to pick a route through the city, right ? So, are there any other methods to help AI navigation, except path-finding? And if there are, how do you know when path-fining is the appropriate algorithm ? Thanks for any thoughts

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• Rotate a particle system

  - by Blueski

  Languages / Libraries in use: C++, OpenGL, GLUT Okay, here's the deal. I've got a particle system which shoots out alpha blended textures to produce a flame. The system only keeps track of very basic things such as, time alive, life, xyz and spread. The direction in which the flames are currently moving in is purely based on other things which are going on in my code ( I assume ). My goal however, is to attach the flame to the camera (DONE) and have the flame pointing in the direction my camera is facing (NOT WORKING). I've tried glRotate for both x,y,z and I can't get it to work properly. I'm currently using gluLookAt to move the camera, and get the flame to follow the XYZ of the camera by calling glTranslatef(camX, camY - offset, camZ); Any suggestions on how I can rotate the direction of the flame with the camera would be greatly appreciated. Heres an image of what I've got: http://i.imgur.com/YhV4w.png Notes: Crosshair depicts where camera is facing if I turn the camera, flame doesn't follow the crosshair Also asked here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9560396/rotate-a-particle-system but was referred here

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• Eculidean space and vector magnitude

  - by Starkers

  Below we have distances from the origin calculated in two different ways, giving the Euclidean distance, the Manhattan distance and the Chebyshev distance. Euclidean distance is what we use to calculate the magnitude of vectors in 2D/3D games, and that makes sense to me: Let's say we have a vector that gives us the range a spaceship with limited fuel can travel. If we calculated this with Manhattan metric, our ship could travel a distance of X if it were travelling horizontally or vertically, however the second it attempted to travel diagonally it could only tavel X/2! So like I say, Euclidean distance does make sense. However, I still don't quite get how we calculate 'real' distances from the vector's magnitude. Here are two points, purple at (2,2) and green at (3,3). We can take two points away from each other to derive a vector. Let's create a vector to describe the magnitude and direction of purple from green: |d| = purple - green |d| = (purple.x, purple.y) - (green.x, green.y) |d| = (2, 2) - (3, 3) |d| = <-1,-1> Let's derive the magnitude of the vector via Pythagoras to get a Euclidean measurement: euc_magnitude = sqrt((x*x)+(y*y)) euc_magnitude = sqrt((-1*-1)+(-1*-1)) euc_magnitude = sqrt((1)+(1)) euc_magnitude = sqrt(2) euc_magnitude = 1.41 Now, if the answer had been 1, that would make sense to me, because 1 unit (in the direction described by the vector) from the green is bang on the purple. But it's not. It's 1.41. 1.41 units is the direction described, to me at least, makes us overshoot the purple by almost half a unit: So what do we do to the magnitude to allow us to calculate real distances on our point graph? Worth noting I'm a beginner just working my way through theory. Haven't programmed a game in my life!

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• Can I run into legal issues with random names?

  - by Nathan Sabruka

  I'm currently building a game whose NPC's are going to be assigned a random gender and a random name for the right gender. To do this I will be using a "database" of names (actually a text file with tuples). There would also be a list of last names, which will be added to the first name also randomly. My question is the following. Suppose one such random name is "George Bush", and this person has been randomly assigned the job of president. As you can see, this could easily be seen as having been "copied" from a real-life person. The main issue is this. Names will be randomly-generated, yes, but the seed for random-number generation will be constant. In other words, the name of an NPC would be randomly-generated, i.e. I wouldn't choose it, but it would be the same for every player. Could this get me in trouble? We cannot verify all possible names, since the generated number of NPC's could be potentially limitless (new NPC's are being created whenever needed).

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• Can I become a Game Designer? [on hold]

  - by user32721

  This is my first time posting something on a forum in 4 years. I am posting this because I want to adjust my expectations and goals regarding game design. I am in college in Morocco (Al Akhawayn university). just started my junior year. I am a communications major (school of humanities) and a gender studies minor. I want to become a video game designer. It is the only career that I am interested in. I have been playing ever since I was 5 and haven't stopped yet. Currently I don't have any noteworthy skills to become a designer. I don't know how to program (don't really have the patience for it) and I can't draw to save my life. I haven't tried visual software like MAYA or MAX so I can't comment on graphic design. So I basically want to know whether my current education is capable of helping me reach my goal. If not then should I take a master's in game design (in the U.S?) or switch my minor to computer science? I am sorry that this post is long! I look forward to hearing your advice!

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• Detecting Units on a Grid

  - by hammythepig

  I am making a little turn based strategy game in pygame, that uses a grid system as the main map to hold all the characters and the map layout. (Similar to Fire Emblem, or Advance Wars) I am trying to determine a way to quickly and efficiently (i.e. without too much of a slow down) check if there are any characters within a given range of the currently selected character. So to illustrate: O = currently selected character X = squares within range Range of 1: X X O X X Range of 2: X X X X X X O X X X X X X Range of 3: X X X X X X X X X X X X O X X X X X X X X X X X X Now I have to tell the user who is in range, and I have to let the user choose who to attack if there are multiple enemies in range. If I have a 5x5 grid, filled with " " for empty and numbers for the characters: [ ][ ][ ][ ][4] [ ][1][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] [ ][ ][2][3][ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] Depending on which character the user selects, I would like to show the user which other characters are in range. So if they all had a range of 3: 1 can hit 2 2 can hit 1 or 3 3 can hit 2 4 cannot hit anyone. So, How do I quickly and/or efficiently run though my grid and tell the user where the enemies are? PS- As a bonus, if someone could give an answer that could also work for a minimum distance type range, I would give them a pat on the back and a high five, should they ever travel to Canada and we ever meet in life. For example: Range of 3 to 5: (- is out of range) X X X X X X X X X X X X - X X X X X X - - - X X X X X X - - O - - X X X X X X - - - X X X X X X - X X X X X X X X X X X X

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• Permanent death in a MUD (think command line MMORPG)

  - by Luke Laupheimer

  I have considered writing a MUD for years, and I have a lot of ideas my friends think are really cool (and that's how I'd hope to get anywhere -- word of mouth). Thing is, there's one thing I have always wanted, that my friends and strangers hated: permanent death. Now, the emotional response I get to this is visceral revulsion, every time. I'm pretty sure I am the only person that wants this, or if I'm not, I'm a tiny minority. Now, the reason I want it is because I want the actions of the players to matter. Unlike a lot of other MUDs, which have a set of static city-states and social institutions etc, I want the things my players do, should I get any, to actually change the situation. And that includes killing people. If you kill someone, you didn't send them to time out, you killed them. What happens when you kill people? They go away. They don't come back in half an hour to smack talk you some more. They're gone. Forever. By making death non-permanent, you make death not matter. It would be similar if a climax to a character's arc is getting a speeding ticket. It cheapens it. Non-permanent death cheapens death. How can I: 1) Convince my players (and random people!) that this is actually a good idea?, or 2) Find some other way to make death and violence matter as much as it does in real life (except within the game, of course) sans character deletion? What alternatives are there out there?

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• Can't read .cso files but I can read their .hlsl versions?

  - by Jader J Rivera

  Well I've been trying to read a .cso file to use as a shader for a DirectX program I'm currently making. Problem is no matter how I implemented a way to read the file it never worked. And after fidgeting around I discover that it's only the .cso files I can't read. I can read anything else (which means it works) even their .hlsl files. Which is strange because the .hlsl (high level shader language) files are supposed to turn into .cso (compiled shader object) files. What I'm currently doing is: vector<byte> Read(string File){ vector<byte> Text; fstream file(File, ios::in | ios::ate | ios::binary); if(file.is_open()){ Text.resize(file.tellg()); file.seekg(0 , ios::beg); file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&Text[0]), Text.size()); file.close(); } return Text; }; If I then implement it. Read("VertexShader.hlsl"); //Works Read("VertexShader.cso"); //Doesn't Works?!?! And I need the .cso version of the shader to draw my sexy triangles. Without it my life and application will never continue and I have no idea what could be wrong. (I've also asked this at stack overflow but still no answers.)

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• Prevent oversteering catastrophe in racing games

  - by jdm

  When playing GTA III on Android I noticed something that has been annoying me in almost every racing game I've played (maybe except Mario Kart): Driving straight ahead is easy, but curves are really hard. When I switch lanes or pass somebody, the car starts swiveling back and forth, and any attempt to correct it makes it only worse. The only thing I can do is to hit the brakes. I think this is some kind of oversteering. What makes it so irritating is that it never happens to me in real life (thank god :-)), so 90% of the games with vehicles inside feel unreal to me (despite probably having really good physics engines). I've talked to a couple of people about this, and it seems either you 'get' racing games, or you don't. With a lot of practice, I did manage to get semi-good at some games (e.g. from the Need for Speed series), by driving very cautiously, braking a lot (and usually getting a cramp in my fingers). What can you do as a game developer to prevent the oversteering resonance catastrophe, and make driving feel right? (For a casual racing game, that doesn't strive for 100% realistic physics) I also wonder what games like Super Mario Kart exactly do differently so that they don't have so much oversteering? I guess one problem is that if you play with a keyboard or a touchscreen (but not wheels and pedals), you only have digital input: gas pressed or not, steering left/right or not, and it's much harder to steer appropriately for a given speed. The other thing is that you probably don't have a good sense of speed, and drive much faster than you would (safely) in reality. From the top of my head, one solution might be to vary the steering response with speed.

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• Can anyone recommend an AI sandbox?

  - by user19433

  I'm passionate person, who has been around AI from a long time [1] but never going in deep enough. Now it's time! I've been really looking for some way to concentrate on AI coding but couldn't succeeded to find an AI environment I can focus on. I just want to use an AI sandbox environment which would let me have tools like: visibility information character controller able to easily define a level, with obstacles of course physics collider management triggers management don't need to be a shiny, eye candy graphical render : this is about pathfinding, tactical reasoning, etc.. I have tried : Unreal Dev Kit : while the new release announce is about C++ coding, this is about external tools and will be released in 2013 Cry Engine : really interesting as AI is presents here but coding with it appears to be an hell: did I got it wrong ? Half Life source, C4, Torque, Dx Studio : either quite old, not very useful or costly these imply to dig in documentation (when provided) to code everything, graphics included. Unity 3D : the most promising platform. While you also need to create your own environment, there are lot of examples. The disadvantage is, in addition to spend time to have this env. working, is the languages choice : C#, Javascript or Boo. C# is not that hard, but this implies you'll allways have to convert papers (I love those from Lars Linden) books codes, or anything you can have in Aigamedev are most often in C++. This is extra work. I've look at "Simple Path", the very good Arong Greenberg work but no source provided and AngryAnt work. AI Sandbox : this seems to be exactly what as AI coder I want to use. I saw some preview but from 2009 we still don't know what it will be about precisely, will it be opensource or free (I strongly doubt), will I be able to buy it? will it really provide me tools I need to focus on AI ? That being said, what is the best environment to be able to focus on AI coding only, is it even possible?

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• How to procedurally (create) grow an artistic (2D) tree in real-time (L-System?).

  - by lalan

  Recently I programmed an L-system module, It got me interested further. I am a Plants vs Zombies junkie as well, really liked the concept of Tree of Wisdom. Would love to create similar procedural art just for fun and learn more. Question: How should I approach the process of creating an artistic tree (2d perhaps with fixed camera/perspective) dynamically? Ideally I would like to start with a plant (only a stem with a leaf) and grow it dynamically using some influence (input/user action) over its structure. These influences may result in different type of branching, curves in branches, its spread, location of fruits, color of flowers, etc. Want it to be really full of life/spirit. :) Plants vs Zombies: Tree of wisdom It would be great to dynamically grow a similar tree, but with lot more variation and animations happening. My Background: Student / Programmer, have used few game engines (Ogre3d, cocos2d, unity). Haven't really programmed directly using openGL, trying to fix that :). I am ready to spend considerable time, Please let me know about the APIs? and how would an expert like you would take on this problem? Why 2D? I think it's easier to solve the problem only considering 2 dimensions. Artistic inspirations: Only the tree, with fruits and leaves, without the shrubs at the bottom The large tree (visible branches, green leaves, flowers, fruits, etc) on the left, behind monkey. PixelJunk's Eden (Art style inspiration). Procedurally Generated Apple Tree using Fractals Please let me know if it was easy for you to understand the question, I may elaborate further. I hope a discussion of various approach would be helpful for everyone. You guys are awesome.

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• Scene graphs and spatial partitioning structures: What do you really need?

  - by tapirath

  I've been fiddling with 2D games for awhile and I'm trying to go into 3D game development. I thought I should get my basics right first. From what I read scene graphs hold your game objects/entities and their relation to each other like 'a tire' would be the child of 'a vehicle'. It's mainly used for frustum/occlusion culling and minimizing the collision checks between the objects. Spatial partitioning structures on the other hand are used to divide a big game object (like the map) to smaller parts so that you can gain performance by only drawing the relevant polygons and again minimizing the collision checks to those polygons only. Also a spatial partitioning data structure can be used as a node in a scene graph. But... I've been reading about both subjects and I've seen a lot of "scene graphs are useless" and "BSP performance gain is irrelevant with modern hardware" kind of articles. Also some of the game engines I've checked like gameplay3d and jmonkeyengine are only using a scene graph (That also may be because they don't want to limit the developers). Whereas games like Quake and Half-Life only use spatial partitioning. I'm aware that the usage of these structures very much depend on the type of the game you're developing so for the sake of clarity let's assume the game is a FPS like Counter-Strike with some better outdoor environment capabilities (like a terrain). The obvious question is which one is needed and why (considering the modern hardware capabilities). Thank you.

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• Hydraulics in game

  - by Mungoid

  I'm not completely sure if this would be better in the Physics site or not as this question is more about how hydraulics should work in game as opposed to how they really work (although that is taken into account) - So I apologize if this is in the wrong place. A project we are on, we have a machine with hydraulics that are powered (They don't just look like they move something, they are the only thing moving/turning/lifting something) - However, the hydraulic extends the same speed no matter what it is pushing. So, say there is a 10 ton object attached to one end of the hydraulic and the other end is attached to a plate on the ground. In real life it takes a few seconds to build up pressure depending on how heavy the object is, but in our project the hydraulics don't care about that. It will lift a 100 ton object the same speed as a 10 ton object. We have a way to fake the hydraulic pressurizing by reducing the 'drive amount' (how fast or slow the hydraulic extends) when we sense that it is touching the ground and that does a relatively decent job but we would like to be able to take other things into account like engine speed, ratios, loads, etc. but we aren't too sure what we need to think about. I'm kinda wondering if anyone here has any experience with this and could offer some suggestions on what to take into account?

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• How to monetize and protect a engine's and its framework's copyrights and patents?

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  I created a game engine that handles: Rendering levels with 2d textured curved surfaces Collisions with curved surfaces Animationn paths on and navigation in 2d-sapce I have also made a framework for: Procedural organic level generation with round surfaces Level editing Light weight sprite design The engine and framework are written in AS3 and I am in the process of translating the code into HaXe to better support other platforms. I am also interested in adding Animated curved platforms More advanced level editing features Currently, I have a part time job and any time I spend on this engine is either taken out of my limited free time (I'm a student working to support myself through school) or out my time working at my job. I really believe this engine can make life much easier for people designing Tower Defence games, Shooters and and Platformers while also possibly improving their results. It could also support RTS, RPGs and racing games very well. It continains original algorithms that could be used for procedural generation of organic round and smooth levels. The algorithms I used are new and are not available in any other level editor I've seen. In order to constantly improve the Engine and have it tested thoroughly I think the best route is releasing it to the public. What are the best ways to benefit myself and others with my new framework? I want to have some lisence, allowing me to share the framework and still benefit from it. Any advice would be appreciated. This issue has been on my mind a lot this year. I am hoping to find a solution that will bring me some relief. I am thinking of designing three sample games, releasing them and starting a kickstarter, any advice and thoughts on the matter would be valuable. My goal is like Markus von Broady suggested, to get people involved in developing the engine and let people use it for games for either a symbolic fee or for free and charge for support. That or use some form of croud sourcing. Do I need to hire a lawyer to get some sort of legal document to protect my work?

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• Unity falling body pendulum behaviour

  - by user3447980

  I wonder if someone could provide some guidance. Im attempting to create a pendulum like behaviour in 2D space in Unity without using a hinge joint. Essentially I want to affect a falling body to act as though it were restrained at the radius of a point, and to be subject to gravity and friction etc. Ive tried many modifications of this code, and have come up with some cool 'strange-attractor' like behaviour but i cannot for the life of me create a realistic pendulum like action. This is what I have so far: startingposition = transform.position; //Get start position newposition = startingposition + velocity; //add old velocity newposition.y -= gravity * Time.deltaTime; //add gravity newposition = pivot + Vector2.ClampMagnitude(newposition-pivot,radius); //clamp body at radius??? velocity = newposition-startingposition; //Get new velocity transform.Translate (velocity * Time.deltaTime, Space.World); //apply to transform So im working out the new position based on the old velocity + gravity, then constraining it to a distance from a point, which is the element in the code i cannot get correct. Is this a logical way to go about it?

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• How can I make permanent death in a MUD seem acceptable and fair to players?

  - by Luke Laupheimer

  I have considered writing a MUD for years, and I have a lot of ideas my friends think are really cool (and that's how I'd hope to get anywhere -- word of mouth). Thing is, there's one thing I have always wanted, that my friends and strangers hated: permanent death. Now, the emotional response I get to this is visceral revulsion, every time. I'm pretty sure I am the only person that wants this, or if I'm not, I'm a tiny minority. Now, the reason I want it is because I want the actions of the players to matter. Unlike a lot of other MUDs, which have a set of static city-states and social institutions etc, I want the things my players do, should I get any, to actually change the situation. And that includes killing people. If you kill someone, you didn't send them to time out, you killed them. What happens when you kill people? They go away. They don't come back in half an hour to smack talk you some more. They're gone. Forever. By making death non-permanent, you make death not matter. It would be similar if a climax to a character's arc is getting a speeding ticket. It cheapens it. Non-permanent death cheapens death. How can I: 1) Convince my players (and random people!) that this is actually a good idea?, or 2) Find some other way to make death and violence matter as much as it does in real life (except within the game, of course) sans character deletion? What alternatives are there out there?

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• Costs/profit of/when starting an indie company

  - by Jack

  In short, I want to start a game company. I do not have much coding experience (just basic understanding and ability to write basic programs), any graphics design experience, any audio mixing experience, or whatever else technical. However, I do have a lot of ideas, great analytical skills and a very logical approach to life. I do not have any friends who are even remotely technical (or creative in regards to games for that matter). So now that we've cleared that up, my question is this: how much, minimally, would it cost me to start such a company? I know that a game could be developed in under half a year, which means it would have to operate for half a year prior, and that's assuming that the people working on the first project do their jobs good, don't leave game breaking bugs, a bunch of minor bugs, etc.. So how much would it cost me, and what would be the likely profit in half a year? I'm looking at minimal costs here, as to do it, I would have to sell my current apartment and buy a new, smaller one, pay taxes, and likely move to US/CA/UK to be closer to technologically advanced people (and be able to speak the language of course). EDIT: I'm looking at a small project for starters, not a huge AAA title.

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• Whole continent simulation [on hold]

  - by user2309021

  Let's suppose I am planning to create a simulation of an entire continent at some point in the past (let's say, around 0 A.D). Is it feasible to spawn a hundred million actors that interact with each other and their environments? Having them reproduce, extract resources, etc? The fact is that I actually want to create a simulation that allows me to zoom in from a view of the entire continent up to a single village, and interact with it. (Think as if you could keep zooming in the campaign map of any Total War game and the transition to the battle map was seamless, not a change of the "game mode"). By the way, I have never made a game in my entire life (I have programmed normal desktop applications, though), so I am really having trouble wrapping my head around how to implement such a thing. Even while thinking about how to implement a simple population simulator, without a graphical interface, I think that the O(n) complexity of traversing an array and telling all people to get one year older each time the program ticks is kind of stupid. Any kind help would be greatly appreciated :) EDIT: After being put on hold, I shall specify a question. How would you implement a simulation of all basic human dynamics (reproduction, resource consumption) in an entire continent (with millions of people)?

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• How do I simplify a 2D game grid for level management while keeping its by-pixel features?

  - by Eric Thoma

  (I cross-posted this from StackOverflow as this seems to be a more appropriate forum. I've looked around a little here and I did not find an answer, so I hope this is not a recurring question.) This is a question dealing with 2D world design. I am playing around by creating a 2D bird's eye view shooter game, and I am looking to make the game sleek and advanced. I hope to be able to write physics so projectiles have momentum and knock-down properties. I am immediately running into the problem of world design. I need a way to have level files that store everything there is about a game. This is easiest by just having a grid of objects. But there are thin-walls and other objects that don't seem to fit into a traditional cell of a grid. I want to be able to fit all these together so I can streamline level design; so I don't have to put in the exact pixel-specific start and end of a wall. There doesn't seem to be an obvious translation from level file to game without forcing myself into a pacman-life scenario, meaning a scenario where the game feels boxy and discrete. There is a contrast between the smoothly (relatively) moving characters and finite jumps in a grid. I would appreciate an answer that would describe implementation options or point me to resources that do. I would also appreciate references to sites that teach game design. The language I am using is Java (although I would love to use C or C++, but I can never find convenient resources in those languages). Thank you for any answers. Please leave any questions in the space below; I will be able to answer them later tonight (28th Nov).

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